You know the Habits of Mind matter. You’ve seen the posters, taught the concepts, maybe even assessed them. But something’s been nagging at you. Why aren’t your students actually getting better at them? Why does…

A teacher once told me about an argument he used to have with his dad. He was a teenager, frustrated, slogging through Latin homework. “This is pointless,” he’d say. “I’m never going to use it.”…

Previously, we explored why developing the Habits of Mind as capabilities—not just content—is essential for preparing students for an uncertain future. Now we dive deeper: what does that development actually look like? A few weeks…

We’ve seen that the Habits of Mind grow across five dimensions through real challenge. But where does that challenge come from? Not from the curriculum – despite what we might hope. Sarah Chen thought she’d…

Before we go any further, there’s something essential we need to make explicit – something my students taught me that changed everything. Jake was brilliant at persisting. Give him any maths problem, and he’d grind…

So far, we’ve discovered that Habits grow through challenge in the Learning Zone, and that students need to recognize which problems demand which superpowers. But here’s the problem: even when students know which superpower they…

We’ve journeyed from understanding how Habits develop, through the role of challenge, to recognizing which problems demand which superpowers, to strategic cultivation of our vulnerabilities. Michael Chen watched his Year 10 students complete their Habit…

We’ve journeyed from understanding how Habits develop, through designing challenges, to enabling student ownership. But there’s been a question lurking beneath it all: How do we know—really know—where each student needs to grow? How can…